Sustainable cities, garden farms and wind towers

I don’t think anyone can deny that things are taking off again in Dubai. Throughout January and February 2014, property developer Emaar, for example, launched a new project every week– a trend that some say could continue throughout the year. But, along with all the new project announcements that appear in the papers every week, I notice a new buzz word in Dubai: sustainable.

Last week, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai and Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, announced plans to build a completely sustainable ‘Smart City’that would be self-sufficient in terms of resources and transport and would run on solar energy. Surrounded by a green belt, the city will be home to 160,000 Emiratis, whose houses will be covered with solar panels. Waste water will be recycled.

But that’s not all. Last week I noticed some hoardings in the desert behind my house – another sustainable city is to be built right there. Called The Sustainable City, this one will produce its own organic food and most of its own electricity; it will recycle its own water and use electrically powered transport for people to get around. Residents will be able to have their own “garden farms”.

It’s all fabulous, of course. With its year-round sunshine, Dubai is brilliantly placed to harness the power of solar energy. And I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling relieved that, while we do still have mega-projects, the days of completely madcap ideas like the ill-fated Dubai Snowdome, which would have seen residents living in tower blocks inside an indoor ski resort, appear to be coming to an end.

A traditional wind tower “catches” the prevailing wind and funnels it down into the house

But the idea of “sustainable cities” popping up around town does leave me feeling a little uneasy: what use is a sustainable city if the residents then climb into their 5-litre four-wheel drives and tear off for a spot of indoor skiing in an air-conditioned mall? Wouldn’t it be better to work on making the whole of “old” Dubai more environmentally friendly?

But we also need to tackle Dubai’s environmental issues at grass-roots level. We need people to start conserving water (and to understand why that’s so important); we need to end our love affair with enormous cars, and to commit to recycling, rather than just popping a few bottles in the recycling bin when we remember.

Air-conditioning is a sticking point, though. Anyone who’s experienced the intense heat of a Gulf summer will know how badly we need it. I noticed that the design of the houses in The Sustainable City will be inspired by the traditional Emirati homes in Dubai’s Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood. The key feature of these old buildings was, of course, the wind tower that acted as an air-conditioner.

The idea of working with nature is appealing. Even if we’re still tied to air-conditioning in the hottest couple of months of the year, a return to environmentally friendly wind towers for the rest of the year would be really, um… cool.

Annabel Kantaria is a journalist who’s lived in the UAE long enough to call it home. She’d quite like to ride a camel to work, is totally over gold-plated supercars and loves the idea of a wind tower. Follow her on Twitter: @BellaKay; and on Instagram: dubaipix